WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

Do you remember the SNOWSTORM last month? The one that covered central NJ and PA with the white stuff? Well for the past week we have had temperatures in the upper sixties and even 70 degrees. In November? This weather is predicted to last into next week until another air mass moves through from the west. And that isn't all-HURRICANE SEASON ISN'T OVER UNTIL NOVEMBER 30th and sure enough, Hurricane Ida is on track to hit the Caribbean coast of the US within days. I am thankful that Florida is not part of that track, since my older son lives there. He has already sent me Christmas cards with him wearing sun glasses on the beach in December. But this is not Florida, folks, and we have no desire for a hurricane.

Other things have been out of kilter as well. In Texas, in a military base, 13 people were killed in a shooting rampage conducted by another soldier who was a doctor. More than 30 others were seriously wounded as well. The spree was finally ended when a civilian police officer shot the offending gunman. She is rightly being called a hero for her swift perception of and action in a warlike situation. She herself was shot four times by the gunman and is recuperating in a base hospital. The perpetrator is in serious condition and is recuperating as well while he awaits judgment for his crime. Both military and media spokespeople are attributing his behavior to having spent the previous portion of his time in the army as a psychologist working with soldiers who have returned physically and mentally wounded from their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The stress of these patients transferred to him, making him stressed himself especially because he is set to go to either of these war scenes soon.

Then there is the case of a man in Florida who shot and killed his former co- workers following the loss of his job in the recession. His inability to find other employment plus the divorce that also came as a result of economic chaos were the last straws. Now many workers harbor ill will toward their employers, but when this leads to murderous action it is cause for alarm. How many other dramas like this will play out as our country struggles to return from a devastating recession? Should we be afraid to go to our jobs, if hopefully we still have them? Old news photos show men jumping out of hi-rise buildings at the start of the Great Depression in 1929 because their finances were demolished in the crash of the stock market. These people killed THEMSELVES, not others. Families were still affected by these suicides, but that is different than losing a loved one to wanton homicides because of someone else's job crisis.

The tragedy of 9-11 is being played out again as the men who planned it and caused it to happen are going on trial in New York despite protests that it would bring up horrible memories. These people are criminals, and like any others should be forced to face their accusers. The possible difference is in the manner and scope of their crime. Thousands of Americans died, not in war, but in simply living their lives and working as usual in the city when the planes hit. In retrospect it has been likened to a jealous child knocking over another's sand castle. But the towers, while perhaps being ostentatious, were nonetheless merely workplaces for large numbers of people who had no interest or involvement in the terrorists' lives.

Our new president is making plans to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight the political upset there. But no matter how many he sends, how well equipped and experienced they are, the prospect of subduing parts of a tribal society with totally different values is bleak. Their society operates on the primacy of males, the Muslim religion, and authority based on age-old tribal laws and mores. Recall the American Indian as the United States was forming in North America. His culture was totally different than that of the settlers, his priorities and values were reflective of a more primitive life and his response to this new "life form" if you want to call it that was to attack!

Technological superiority has made us targets in many situations. It enables us to subdue other cultures, even eradicate them. Yet it doesn't wipe out the feelings of envy and fear that it generates. Handing out candy bars to children whose homes have been destroyed as if they were going around for Trick or Treat is likely to make only short term friendships. It is doubtful also that this extension of generosity will prevent their parents from filling the streets with IED's that will blow the soldier's hands off at a later date.

I read a comic strip entitled Non Sequitur© in which a determined and defiant little girl wants to make the world obey HER. When she lays out her elaborate, if misguided, plans for her ideal social order she is amazed that everyone else doesn't see things her way. This character, "Danae", feels that her way is THE WAY and presses it upon anyone who will listen. Is this a parody of world leaders throughout history? Do Muslims stage their Jihads to press a religion on non-believers at the point of a gun or explosion of a bomb? Or Nazi and Communist dictators through concentration camps and the gulag? Is ideology the reason for behavior, or is it an attempt to mask other motives?